Microsoft buys a chunk of Nokia. Surprise!

We saw this coming, didn’t we? It was all planned, and well orchestrated; it’s been a good strategy: send someone to the other company, help it sink, then buy it at a discount price. It was all a con. I love conspiracies. The “mole” ex-Microsoft Stephen Elop was supposed to save Nokia (read his memo on Nokia being a ‘burning platform’) but he is saving Microsoft instead. He has demolished Nokia by first making it undervalued and then giving away to Microsoft its devices and services business on the cheap, for just $7 billion ..Is it just me or does this sound like a bargain? Is that significant portion of Nokia’s business really worth only $7 billion? Wow. I would have guessed/expected much more. Of course Elop will soon be back at Microsoft and will likely follow Steve Ballmer as CEO.

Many say that this may anyway be a good move given that both companies are struggling and out of options, but will two struggling companies make a good one?

By buying the devices and services part of Nokia’s business and acquiring a long term license for its patents, Microsoft will likely try to position itself as a direct competitor for Apple and Google, since it will be able to engineer both software and hardware for its new mobile devices. But I wonder what we should expect in the near future, since neither Microsoft nor Nokia have amazed me with their products or services in the past several years. Will we see a new Kin? :D

I also wonder what will happen to the other partners that Microsoft currently has and that use the Windows Phone OS on their devices; will they be willing to compete with Microsoft directly or will they jump ship and join the other manufacturers that use Android instead on their devices? Some may argue that this didn’t happen when Google acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion last year, but it’s still possible.

It’s a shame, really, that a company that once upon a time ruled the world of mobile, is kinda slowly dying. My first phone was a Nokia, and so many of the phones I have owned before my first iPhone. It saddens me to think that we will never see another Nokia smartphone :)

At least there still is Angry Birds! :)